“Baharudin Ahmad, a 59 year old Malay taxi driver, died during police action at the rally. Encik Baharudin was a typical Malay self-employed city-dweller, struggling to make ends meet with a low-paying job and rising costs of living. Yet he succeeded in putting his daughter through medical school. The authorities have ignored his family’s grief.”

These few words painted a very succinct and poignant picture of the ordinary poor Malay different from those in the rich class who can afford $24 RM diamond rings!

Baharudin Ahman was no different from the poor farmer who toiled in the paddy field or the fisherman on the sea to provide food for the table. He did not die in vain. His life showed how the poor strived hard to make ends meet.

Bahrudin was admirable in that by working as a taxi driver he succeeded in educating his daughter. What was even more admirable was that despite of his heart condition he made a point of being at the Bersih march. His death from a heart attack and evidence of being seriously beaten raises question on whether this was due to police brutality.

He is in a way a symbol of all the poor who overcame their fear of the authorities’ threat of violence and stood up to have their say on Bersih day regardless of race.

His death has already immediate repercussions for UMNO. The authorities ignored his death and this will certainly turn public opinion against them and enable people to see that UMNO does not protect the poor regardless of race. Bahrudin’s brother an ex-service man shortly after his death declared that he is joining the opposition Pakatan. If these people who were literally the foot soldiers of UMNO are turning away from it then things are really changing.

Those of us who do not understand how the poor people survive can gain a little insight to the conditions of the poor such as even Malays whom UMNO championed for 54 years. Yet the majority of Malays remain poor.

UMNO’s economic solutions have gone off the track despite their original good intentions and ended up with “unbridled” corruption and enrichment of a small class of Malays within UMNO and its exclusive circle of MCA MIC and Sabah and Sarawak political and tycoon cronies.

The Bersih march can represent many things for different people. In one aspect it represents the awakening of the majority poor and middle classes against the minority ruling class.

So the day of reckoning for the UMNO ruling class is approaching fast when the majority poor class of people are beginning to rise up and question their social conditions.

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After doing the best I could for Patrina and Kevin I would want my grandsons Bernard, Ryan and Patrick and whoever Kevin fathers, to remember that their grandpa tried his best to make this a better world for them.